Monday, October 29, 2007

Rugby

We hadn't had a chance to see Ben play rugby yet this fall. He is on a club team at Luther. This past weekend was our opportunity.

It looked like it was going to be a sunny weekend, so we loaded up the camper and headed off to Pulpit Rock campground in Decorah Friday evening after work. We came in after dark, so we weren't 100% sure of the view from our campsite, but here's the view we woke to. We walked to the bench on the other side of the trout stream for our morning coffee. While we were sipping, we watched a fellow camper catch a lovely trout and put him on the stringer for supper.

Before riding our bikes over for the noon rugby game, we did a quick geocache on Pulpit Rock. Here Girl of the House and Paul are examining the spot the micro-cache was hidden.

Rugby is a very physical game - we are still learning the rules. The game flew by. I had brought my spindle for the slow times, but never got it out.

Ben is the player in the red bandana. (His rugby name is "Pirate".) This is a "scrum" - everyone pushing and trying to get the ball.

Saturday afternoon we did two more geocaches in the area, then hunkered down by the fire. Ben joined us for supper before he was off to see a juggling show at the college.

Sunday morning it was 23 degrees when we woke. BRRRR...Still, we went out and had our coffee on the little bench by the stream. Gotta love the hand warming properties of a ceramic mug full of coffee!

After our usual fantastic Paul-cooked breakfast, we took the dogs and went searching for more geocaches. Decorah has fabulous trails and bike paths all around town. We did one cache at Dunning Spring. We were at Dunning Spring in late September (parents weekend). It was much quieter this weekend - we only saw a handful of people.We hiked to Palisade Park high over the city. Total hike was 8.8 miles! Everyone did fine, GotH and puppy Chip included. We though we'd walk back through town for a snack from the grocery store. THE GROCERY STORE WAS CLOSED!! They are closed on Sundays! Wow, small town! Luckily the co-op was open, and we got yummy Kashi granola bars.

We headed home in the late afternoon. Just enough time to unload, check the mail and email, and settle in for a bottle of wine and a fire.

I did start knitting a Rambling Rows afghan for the camper with the Coopworth I have spun up. I have enough of the darkest color to get a good start.

The pattern, from Cottage Creations, calls for five colors, but I'm going to use the three I have. I debated dyeing some of the yarn, but decided I liked the natural colors quite well. I'm going to make the medium (lap robe) size.